Ema Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (Earning Your Ears Book 2) (3 page)

After jumping through all the hoops of airport security, we made it to our flight gate where we waited until our seat numbers were called and got in line. There were plenty of adults, but all with children. Some couples gave us funny looks for our giggly Disney conversation, my loud voice, and the general excitement bubble that had formed around us.

As we took our seats ready for the long 9-hour flight, we sucked on our sweets and prepared for takeoff. Contrary to what I had expected, there was very little Disney conversation, or any kind of conversation; most of the flight consisted of awkward silences (we were still comparative strangers, even though we had a common purpose), watching movies, and listening to music with only one earphone so we wouldn’t look completely rude to the others. Before we knew it, we were putting our seatbelts back on and the plane was landing in Orlando.

Our dreams were about to become a reality. Once we got through Customs…

Unlike everyone else on our flight, we were the targets for loads of questions by the customs agents. They wanted to make sure we were going to leave when we were supposed to, that we had no plans to work illegally, and so forth. I didn’t know much about customs; I’d only ever passed through with my parents, and they had never bothered us when we had been on holiday. This was an entirely different experience. The customs agents engaged us in what I thought was friendly conversation, but the did so to lull us into a false sense of security, making it easier for them to catch us in a lie. This happened to me. An agent asked me where I had come from and what I was studying back home. Then he asked me:

Customs Guy: Where are you going to be working?

Me: Disneyland.

Customs Guy: You’re in the wrong state for that.

This led to him asking me more questions, even after I stated that I had meant Disney World, not Disneyland. I had never gotten my parks confused before, and it was a sign of my excitement and nervousness that I had done so now.

After my Disneyland ordeal was over, and the customs guy decided I wasn’t dangerous, we went to claim our luggage and find transportation. Our housing complex, Vista Way, was 20-30 minutes from the airport, which gave us plenty of time to take lots of photos. We had all moved on from the awkward stage, and now we were interacting as if we’d known each other for years. I proved it when I turned to Amy, one of the girls, and shouted
“READY?!”
in her face before taking a photo of the two of us. Little did I know that Amy would soon become one of my best friends and my rock during the program.

When we arrived at Vista Way, we were taken to a room where we sat through a welcome session which consisted of free cookies, chocolate, and bottled water. This is where I made even more of a fool of myself than I did by shouting “ready” in Amy’s face. We got our apartment keys in a little sealed brown envelope. In the top corner was a label with our name and some numbers. Everyone was discussing what apartment they were in. Amy and Shauna were assigned to the same unit. I just stood, confused, looking at my paperwork and trying to see where everyone else was finding their apartment numbers. The only numbers I could were 2012. If I’d been asked where I was staying, all I would have been able to say was “Vista Way” and the current year. Amy giggled and came to my rescue: “Ema, that’s not the year, you are in apartment number twenty twelve.”

Even though I felt stupid, I forgot all about it when I realized that I’d be in the same apartment block as Amy and Shauna.

We headed over to our apartments to unpack a few essentials before heading over to one of the local Walmarts for the dreaded food shop. After carrying my suitcases up two flights of stairs, I entered 2012 and closed the door behind me. I saw a room directly to my left with nothing and no one in it, and so there’s where I dropped my suitcases. The other bedroom was already occupied, though only by suitcases; no one was in there, and for now I had the apartment entirely to myself. I left in a few minutes for Walmart, hoping that when I got back I’d have a roommate.

The four of us from the Manchester flight regrouped and took public transportation to Walmart. Luckily, we had all brought our bedding with us, so we only had to worry about getting food. However, for the British, doing a food shop in an American supermarket was going to be difficult. Walmart was about four times the size of my Asda back home, if not bigger. I was tired, had endured a 9-hour flight, and the last thing I wanted to do was shop for enough food to last me two weeks. It wasn’t as if we could skip any aisles, because we’d have no idea what we would miss. This trip led to multiple distractions, in particular the craft aisle for me, with its multitudes of scrapbooking paper and stickers. I’d be lucky if I found colored biros and a pack of highlighters at my supermarket back home. As much as I don’t want to admit it, at least a third of the $90 I spent at Walmart was on items that I thought were cool.

After we went through the tills, we all congregated in the corner to re-bag, tactically putting bottles and heavy items in our backpacks. At this point, I was totally regretting my need to buy a 12-can pack of Diet Coke.

Once I had conquered getting onto the bus with a backpack that seemed heavier than the bus, I found a seat and stupidly put my frozen food bag on my lap. If the arctic air conditioning on the bus didn’t freeze me, the food on my lap certainly would. Making matters worse, it seemed that every voice I heard on the bus spoke with a British accent. We all had to deal with the 22-kilogram weight restriction on the plane, and so we had to be selective with what we brought from home. As a result, we had to buy lots more stuff locally than the average American college program participant, who’d be able to stuff their car with everything imaginable if they were within driving distance of Disney World. The bus was well and truly packed with people and goods, leaving us little room to rearrange our purchases and forcing me to keep my little piece of the Arctic nestled on my lap.

We got back to Vista, finally, with some life still in my legs, and I soon learned that getting on the bus with my deadweight backpack was nowhere near as difficult as walking up the stairs to 2012 on the top floor. Making matters worse, it was dark, around 9:30pm, and my keys had gotten stuck on a cotton thread in my pocket, beneath the Walmart bags that were cutting off the circulation to my arms. I finally made it into the apartment where another surprise awaited me: the door to my room was closed. I was sure I’d left it open when I went out. Walking past it, I went straight to the kitchen to put away my frozen goods before they thawed completely. With that done, I went back to my room and opened the door. Inside I found a girl, a bit shorter than me, with hair as red as Ariel’s. I was so excited to meet my summer roommate. She said:

“Hi, I’m Abbie”

The first thing on the agenda for my first full day in Florida was to pick up my housing ID. This all-important item would get me through the security gates at the housing complexes, onto the College Program buses, and as a photo ID to take advantage of Cast Member discounts in the parks.

My ID photo would be permanent for the entire program, so before I left the apartment I made sure to put on my makeup perfectly, hide my flaws with concealer, and pile on the eyeliner. When I got down to the pavilion to have my photo taken, I could feel the heat on my face. Thick makeup and Florida weather are not the perfect combination; however, what was about to happen was more embarrassing than the sweat running down my face and the smudged eyeliner. I got to the front of line and sat down on the chair, and the guy with the camera told me to do a “Disney Smile”. I gave my biggest-ever smile and FLASH! The picture was taken. Now I had the goofiest ever smile on my ID, and people would be looking at it for the next three months. Great.

After getting our IDs, we all did a sharing session and looked at one another’s photos, giggling at their silliness (real or imagined). Then we headed to The Commons, one of the other housing complexes, for a presentation about our housing complex. I sat next to Amy and we kept each other smiling with whispered non-Disney answers to Disney questions, like this one:

Presentation Woman: In Disney, what do you always wear?

Me: Sunscreen.

Amy: Underwear.

Random Girl: A smile.

Presentation Woman: Correct. A smile.

The presentation went on for about two hours and consisted mostly of boring but necessary rules and regulations. They told us about the importance of our IDs, having respect for our apartment mates (especially if you work a late shift and come home in the middle of the night), and so forth. This presentation was intended only for internationals, so they spent a lot of time going over immigration rules and visa restrictions. The main thing was what happens if we defy the rules, or if our visa becomes invalid because of the actions that we take; answer: we’re put on the next flight home. In that circumstance, we also wouldn’t get our 30 days of traveling time after the end of the program. If we were terminated, or if we decided to leave the program ourselves, we’d lose our visa immediately. There were a lot of things that could get us terminated, including underage drinking (in England, the legal age for drinking is 18, unlike in America, where it’s 21, so that took some getting used to), sneaking into another housing complex, threatening a cast member, owning a weapon (even a toy weapon bought in the parks), and engaging in any illegal activity. To name a few.

After the presentation finished, we went back to our apartment to get ready for Starlight Splash, the College Program welcome party that night at Typhoon Lagoon. Attending the party would get us a free t-shirt, food, and access to all the rides. On top of that, there was a DJ and some pirates who came to dance to Nikki Minaj with us.

It started to rain while we were stood in line eating our Mickey ice cream sandwiches. I just picked the biscuit off mine because I don’t like ice cream, but I couldn’t say no to free food. However, rain and biscuit don’t mix well, just like Florida heat and lots of makeup. We were already wet from being in the wave pool and the lazy river, so the rain wasn’t bothering us too much, but it was definitely affecting my ice cream sandwich, and I let this be known to the group: “My soggy fingers are making my biscuit soggy.”

This showed everyone my tendency to be a drama queen, but they couldn’t help but laugh at my ridiculous statement.

It was our second full day in Florida, and we still hadn’t been to any of the parks except for Typhoon Lagoon the night before. I felt like a kid on the run-up week to Christmas as we waited outside at The Commons for the second orientation meeting to begin.

Cast members spoke to everyone, in groups of 6–8, before letting us inside. This was more like a personal inspection. They look at piercings, tattoos, and discussed any issues we had about Traditions, which was taking place the following day. The inspection wasn’t to find flaws so they could send you home, but more of a reminder for you to cover up any tattoos and remove piercings, because if you turned up at Traditions with them, you would be sent away and told to attend another Traditions class later in the week. However, you aren’t given your Disney ID card until you complete a Traditions class, and without your ID card, you can’t work or play in the parks. On top of all that, they inspected our hair to ensure that it was in accord with the “Disney Look”, and if it wasn’t, we had less than 24 hours to correct the problem, either with a cut or dye. Unfortunately for Shauna, the cast members thought she might not make it into Traditions because she had the slightest hint of dip dye in her hair from years ago. It was only one or two shades lighter than her natural hair, and you could barely even see it. But there was no appeal to the strict Disney rules, and so rather than risk being barred from Traditions, Shauna got ride of that old dye.

I’d done a fair bit of reading prior to going on the program, and former ICPs had said that during the second orientation meeting we’d learn our job locations. This was what everyone was talking about. When we finally went into the presentation room, we were ushered to our aisle, as the paperwork was in alphabetical order. I wouldn’t be able to sit next to my friends here. I saw my name on a piece of paperwork and sat down next to a Canadian guy who was chatting up the three girls in the row in front, and the girls were obviously fed up with him and immediately started talking to me. They were Canadian, too. Not long after I sat down, a Chinese lad took up the chair on the other side of me. I hoped he wasn’t a creep, too. He started to read his paperwork, then he said:

“Where is the Grand Floridian?”

I was dying inside at the thought of someone not knowing their general Disney knowledge before they arrived. As these girls had started to speaking to me from the moment I sat down, and my attention was focused on making sure I didn’t get into conversation with this creepy guy, I completely forgot about my work location. The moment the Chinese lad asked me where his resort was, I shot straight to my paperwork. I skimmed through all of it until I found the page that said “work location”.

PORT ORLEANS!

I had never stayed or even visited Port Orleans before, but I had researched all the resorts before I came so I was pretty excited, because I remember it was themed on Mardi Gras and
Princess and the Frog
, and looked family friendly and fun.

The attention quickly flipped back to the Canadian Sir Creeps-a-Lot when he turned the conversation around back to himself. He started telling everyone around him, no matter how uninterested they were, that his suitcase had been lost on his flight to Orlando, and I felt a bit of sympathy for him and his fear that he wouldn’t have anything to wear to Traditions the following day. However, I still didn’t want to talk to him.

The presentation started, finally, with a review of the basic rules and community codes that we were taught yesterday. Then the immigration lady came to speak to us again, just in case we didn’t already understand that drinking and owning a weapon was prohibited; this time, the point was pressed upon us with help from
Toy Story
and
Stitch
images, so we’d never forget. After we were scared stiff again by the thought that the slightest action could result in us being terminated and sent back home, we had to then fill out a long form to apply for a Social Security number. Luckily for us, the presenter talked us through the entire form, step by step.